Superwoman Pressure:
Are Today’s Women Expected to Do It All?
Over the past century, the role of women has undergone remarkable transformation. Opportunities once closed off are now within reach. Women today are more empowered, educated, and career-driven than any generation before them. But behind this progress lies a sobering reality: with greater access has come greater expectation – and women are now expected to do it all.
The latest findings from YDx’s Youth Matters panel reveal that while young people celebrate women’s empowerment, they also recognise a growing imbalance. The world has piled new demands on women without lifting the old ones. What emerges is a phenomenon that could be described as superwoman pressure - the expectation that women excel in every sphere, from home to workplace to society, while men’s roles remain largely unchanged.
It is worth noting that men themselves were largely absent from this discussion. Despite the survey being positioned as an exploration of modern-day gender roles relevant to both genders, only 15% of respondents were male. This disengagement is telling: while young women were eager to share their perspectives, many young men appeared reluctant to participate. The imbalance in responses raises a crucial question - how can progress be shared if one half of the conversation is missing?
The Home: Where Expectations Run Deep
If empowerment begins in the public sphere, inequality often lingers in the private one. Nearly 79% of youth say the home is where women face the highest expectations, and more than two-thirds believe women are pressured to be the “perfect partner or parent.”
While cultural narratives around parenting have evolved, the reality is that the emotional load remains largely unchanged. Over 54% of youth believe women still carry most of the emotional responsibility in households, just as previous generations did. This means that even as women pursue careers, independence, and financial freedom, they are still expected to hold families together, manage the invisible labour of caregiving, and ensure emotional stability at home.
The implication is striking: men’s roles within the home have not significantly shifted to share the burden. Women have entered new lanes, but men have largely stayed in theirs, leaving women to juggle both - a silent, relentless demand for them to stretch themselves thinner without complaint.
The Workplace: Proving, Competing, Enduring
The professional world offers opportunity, but it also asks women to walk a fine line. Over 64% of youth believe women face heightened pressure in the workplace to compete, prove themselves, or lead teams. The message is clear: women must constantly demonstrate that they belong in spaces where progress has been made but equality is still fragile.
And despite decades of advocacy, inequality remains entrenched. Over 82% of youth believe women are treated differently compared to men at work, while nearly 74.75% have either seen or personally experienced gender discrimination. The fact that such a majority has witnessed inequality shows how deeply embedded it is in workplace culture.
Interestingly, while 65% of youth believe workplaces offer some support for women, it’s recognised as far from enough. Policies may exist, but culture often lags behind. Women find themselves walking into offices where their presence is welcomed in theory, yet in practice they must consistently outperform and overcompensate to be taken seriously.
Society: The Weight of Appearance and Behaviour
Beyond the home and the workplace, the wider social gaze exerts its own pressures. 62% of youth believe women are pressured to look attractive and maintain certain appearances, underscoring how deeply ingrained beauty standards remain.
But appearance is only one part of the story. 50% of young people believe women are often expected to tone down aspects of their personalities to be accepted. The traits most frequently policed? Strong opinions, anger, or frustration– with 63% of youth saying these are the first things women are told to hide.
This expectation of restraint illustrates another double standard: while men are often rewarded for assertiveness, women risk criticism or dismissal for the same traits. In addition, 54% believe women today are pressured to always be polite and not complain - a reminder that empowerment is conditional, permitted only so long as it does not disrupt existing social norms.
Culture & Media: Mirrors of Progress and Constraint
Culture and media shape how expectations are normalised, and here too, the picture is mixed. 54% of youth believe treatment of women varies significantly across cultural groups, pointing to how intersectionality shapes lived experiences in different communities.
Meanwhile, social media has become both an amplifier of voice and a source of new burdens. 43% of youth believe platforms create high expectations for women to look a certain way and portray a particular lifestyle. The constant visibility of curated, filtered identities adds to the impossible balancing act: women must not only do it all, but also be seen to do it perfectly.
Even in more formal spaces of representation, stereotypes persist. Just over 55% of youth believe women are somewhat fairly represented in media, but still through limiting tropes. Progress exists, but it is patchy - the old narratives are not entirely gone, only reshaped.
Empowerment: Progress with Persistent Gaps
Young people are not blind to the progress that has been achieved. 37% believe women are more empowered today than ever before, and this reflects tangible strides in education, career opportunities, and social freedoms.
Yet for every note of optimism, there is an acknowledgement of unfinished business. 49.5% of youth believe that while women are empowered, deep inequalities remain. The word “empowerment” becomes complex: it signals access but does not guarantee equity.
Women are celebrated for breaking barriers but still judged by standards that men are rarely asked to meet. The result is a paradox: empowerment without relief. Instead of redistributing responsibilities and challenging long-standing gender roles, society has simply added new expectations to women’s plates, with little structural adjustment.
Closing Reflection: A Call to Balance
The Youth Matters findings point to a generation that is both grateful for progress and unflinching in its awareness of imbalance. For them, the story of women today is not just about doors opening, but about the weight carried once those doors were stepped through.
Superwoman pressure is not empowerment in its truest sense; it is expansion without support, opportunity without equality, and freedom that still comes at a cost. As long as men’s roles remain fixed while women’s multiply, the promise of empowerment will remain incomplete.
Perhaps most concerning is that men - the very group whose participation is essential for balance - remain, in many cases, absent from the dialogue. With only 15% of survey respondents male, the disengagement speaks volumes. If progress is to be truly shared, men cannot stand outside these conversations; they must step into them.
What young people are asking - implicitly and explicitly - is for balance. To celebrate empowerment not by piling on new demands but by reshaping the structures, attitudes, and expectations that underpin daily life. Only then will progress feel like freedom, rather than pressure disguised as opportunity.
Written by,
Jessica Lyne
YDx Research Analyst